Sticks and Stones

Maybe a bit cliché...a work in progress... from a teacher's point of view on a school shooting...

I’m staring into the barrel of a foreign firearm. 

I’m close enough to be tickled by its trigger

and I’m sharing the only thing left that is keeping both me and the killer

alive:

oxygen.

His inhale is my exhale and we are playing tug of war.

With every breath his grip on that gratifying gun tightens

and I’m scanning his face curiously

for clues that might give away his most quiet kept secret:

Why?

Why did it come to this?

A child confusingly constrained in a soldier’s suit

convinced that he has to fight…

back:

a world that never let him sleep at night,

a school full of words much stronger than sticks and stones.

Hateful peers who proudly pranced around the queer boy

like demons

until his wrists bled

and his room stunk with an unexplainable filth

of a life that was not his.

Guilt hung on hangers inside of his closet of desperation.

Desperate to deny everything that he was…

but even more desperate to die.

F*g.

Queer.

Get out of here.

You don’t belong, you perverted freak.

You are worthless.

The wounds inflicted by words tend to linger longer than those of

fists or gunshots.

Gun….gun….

this gun that glares at me and questions my humanity…

Thoughts racing through my head like a Caucus race

running in circles

with no finish line.

How did I not hear his cries for help?

Oh, but I did….

How did I never see the silent scars on his soul?

I did.

Or felt the failing faith

that so selfishly slipped away…

Words from his fellow classmates

became the sticks and stones that drove a poor boy crazy…

but silence from his teacher,

was enough to pull the trigger.

 

 

Reviews

[alifeacoustic]

This is wonderfully captured. From first line, the tension is felt, fearing the trigger has reached the point of no return, people see all too late what they have made that trigger holder into. No one chooses to be bullied, or victimised, yet I have never heard of a bored bully before. The more bile spat at them from so called peers. The victim, instead of growing naturally into all they can and should be, almost dissolves in front of our eyes at every insult and perceived accusation, until they no longer feel themselves to be anything other than what they hear from others. Their only crime, not being part of the in crowd, and for that they are found instantly and irretrievably guilty. How cruel a child's words can be and how useless that teacher must feel, because they turned a blind eye, or worse, joined in by not stopping the taunts and jeers. When people are p, it is rarely the guilty that get their vengeance.
A powerful and impactful read, superbly written.